


things born in the spaces left behind

by playmaker



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Introspection, Nightmares, Recovery, Regret, another vent piece lol, n stuff, you know how it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:33:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playmaker/pseuds/playmaker
Summary: In the absence of something, what takes its place?





	things born in the spaces left behind

**Author's Note:**

> this is short i just. needed to write smth or ill Die

Winter, Takumi decided, was the season that best described him.

It was cold, and brittle, and it took everything alive with it. The nights outlived the days, and twilight settled in before Takumi could blink.

The war was over, and he was safe. Now, with a security that had long since been forgotten, Takumi couldn’t help but feel even more uneasy under the false pretences of _safety_. It was an objective thing, anyway, so Takumi concluded it was just another thing he had to get over.

He lived so long believing he was nothing but negative spaces— the absence of something taken from him— and he was still learning that people don’t work like that. They _can’t_ work like that.

_People aren’t their losses, Takumi._

It was something Leo had told him, once.

Looking back, it was probably just a throwaway line that he had spoken, not expecting Takumi to even remember the exchange past that day.

He did, though. It was funny, sometimes, the things his subconscious decided to remember.

People weren’t their losses, sure, it was just that Takumi had always been _scared_. He was terrified to see what had grown in the empty parts of him that grief left in its wake. Sadness, maybe, if he was to be let off easy, or loneliness, but that wasn’t quite right either, was it?

Takumi was not his losses— Leo, or Corrin, or Sakura— they wouldn’t let him be. Still, what was he, if not all the bad things that had happened to him? What had he become in the absence of the skeletons that had come tumbling out of his closet, one by one?

Sorrow still found a place to sleep in him, like it always did, but sorrow was only visiting.

He still woke up hollow and shaking, but less often now. The peace he could find at night more often than not was unsettling, in a way.

Sometimes, he would dream of poppies growing from his hands. In his dream, he would pluck them, rolling the petals between his fingertips until his hands stained red. There was a terrible comfort found in the familiarity of crimson painting his skin.

He wanted to heal, deep down, but there were still things he had yet to let go.

The nights where his demons still followed him, rare as they had been lately, he would go on walks with with them. They would sit together in open fields with starry skies and share silent company. They would be illuminated only by the haze of the moon and the glow of their lonely hearts. Takumi would wonder if he was still here simply because he didn’t know how not to be. He would fall asleep there, in the grass, and his demons would carry him to his bed. By morning, they would have gone back to wherever it was they called home, and Takumi would feel a piece of him gone, too.

He still needed them more than he would admit.

Change, Takumi found, was not a practice easily accepted, but one worth pursuing.

 _I’m trying_ , he would say, and he would be telling the truth.

_I think I am ready to get better now._

**Author's Note:**

> not betad not proofread just shit out into google docs bc im suffocating under the pressure of existing!!!  
> nothing i do feels good enough, yknow? i hate being an adult


End file.
